A Cavalcade of Taste
by Milady Montrose
Summary: One-Shot. Amethyst amps up the breadth and width of her taste buds, and throws in a bit of enhanced smell for kicks. Unable to handle the delicious tastes, Amethyst goes on an eating spree. A little body horror at the end.


The sky was a special color that morning, the slate blue and dull grey of clouds pregnant with rain. Steven and Amethyst stood out on the porch, Steven with his head to the wind. Steven breathed in the smell of air before rain. The scent dancing between his nostrils was sweet, with a pungent zing. He knew that after the rain, there would be a wonderful earthy, wet smell in the air.

"Do you smell this?" asked Steven.

"Smell what?" asked Amethyst. "You mean the rain?"

"Yeah! This smell is called _Petrichor_. I read about it in the dictionary!" said Steven, grinning.

"Huh." Amethyst frowned slightly. She inhaled deeply, and held in the breath for a while. Finally she let it all out in a whoosh of air. "Ah, I can kinda smell it! It's kinda nice I guess."

Steven smiled, and entered the house. "There's nothing better to do on a rainy day besides read manga!" He led Amethyst up to his stash. His stash was a cardboard box filled to the brim with manga. The vibrant covers, dancing with neon colors and flamboyant characters, peeked out at Amethyst in the dull light.

"So what're ya reading?" asked Amethyst, throwing herself onto the bed.

"Toriko!" said Steven, showing her the cover of the eponymous Toriko. The cover displayed a blue haired guy chowing down on a hunk of meat. Amethyst laughs. "I feel this guy relates to me."

"Yeah! He loves to eat!" said Steven, joining Amethyst on the bed.

"All right, a guy after my own heart! Gimme that!"

And so the two enjoyed a few volumes. After a while, Amethyst observed, "He's really enjoying that food."

Steven nodded.

Amethyst continued to read. It was odd, she thought, that taste was emphasized over and over. Amethyst could feel herself getting hungry.

All of a sudden, she bounded off the bed. "Where are you going?" asked Steven, voice a little down.

"I'm gonna get some food!" yelled Amethyst over her shoulder. "I'll be right back!"

She ran to the bookshelf, and pulled out a book of human anatomy. Taste had been so hyped up, she just had to try eating with human taste buds. It was something new, instead of just concentrating on the feeling as it traveled through her body.

Amethyst studied the delicately drawn pictures, then concentrated. Nothing much changed, but when she dragged the front of her tongue across the roof of her mouth, she could feel tiny bumps. "All right!" she crowed. "Now to get to the good stuff!"

Amethyst ran to her room, dragging out a bottle of coolant. She downed it in one gulp. The taste was sweet, and it slid down her throat easily. Amethyst sloshed it around in her mouth, savoring the way it flowed around the roots of her tongue. She swallowed.

Thrilled, Amethyst decided to go out in a hunt for exotic tastes.

Steven brought her to the Big Donut, and got her one. With Amethyst's newly extremely amplified taste buds and sense of smell, the taste was like a bombshell. Every bite seared her mouth with flavor-cloying sugar overpowered everything at first, then came the subtle but stronger scents of vanilla and the harsh but good cinnamon. Amethyst let the flavors take her for a ride, then swallowed, and turned her attention back to the trio.

Lars, Sadie and Steven were staring at her. Lars said, "…It's just a donut. You don't have to act like you just got a-"

"-TASTY DONUT!" overrode Sadie. "Steven it's been fun, but-!"

Steven got the hint and led Amethyst outside. "That was so awesome, Steven! Let's go taste something else!"

Amethyst progressed to more extreme taste. At the fishing wharfs, she lolled her tongue around Yellowtail's boat, basking in the taste of brine, extreme salt, and mud.

"Mud tastes good?" asked Steven in disbelief. Amethyst swallowed a full gulp of ocean brine. "Steven, you don't know what you're missing! It taste so awesome!"

Amethyst caught the scent of something incredible then. At first whiff it was French fries, but underneath...fullbodied carbohydrates and lovely sugars and meaty potato starch and and pungent black pepper and-

Amethyst careened over to the side of Beach Citywalk Fries, leaping up into Mr. Fryman's face. "GAH!" he screamed.

"Gimme the oil!"

"What? You mean the bits-"

"The OIL! I just gotta see how it tastes…"

"Uh." Said Mr. Fryman. He glanced over his shoulder. The oil was completely used from the day's frying, but it was still 3rd degree-burns hot.

Amethyst squirmed at his hesitance. Climbing over the divider, to Mr. Fryman's horror, she lunged for the oil, and dumped it down her throat. Mr. Fryman screamed.

Pearl and Garnet hurried after Steven as fast as they could. "It's a good thing you came to use once Amethyst began to eat Yellowtail's boat," Pearl said.

"Yeah!" Steven agreed. He led them over to Mr. Fryman's stall. They were outside, a mixture of horrified and concerned. Mr. Fryman hurried over to Steven. "She's uh, in there."

Amethyst sat in the middle of the stall, covered in boiling oil. Her hair seemed to be matted together like if plastic was left in an oven, her face was soft and melted like chocolate in the sun. Her lower jaw was covered by her hands, but purple ooze leaked from the cracks of her fingers. Amethyst stared at her friends. "I've been dumb, right?"

"Amethyst! You look horrible! What happened?" Pearl screeched.

"She drank boiling oil." Peedee supplied.

"Sorry. It was just so delicious. The essence of fries, the hefty taste of carbohydrate…" Amethyst trailed off.

Garnet adjusted her glasses. "Let's clean you up, Amethyst."

Amethyst stared at Garnet. POOF.

Steven screamed in horror.

Three hours later, Amethyst reformed.

She was immediately submerged in an avalanche of teary reunions, shrill implied threats and warnings, and firm reassurances that none of them were angry at her. As they descended upon her, Amethyst curled into a defensive position and yelled, "I got rid of the taste buds!"

It didn't matter. Steven pulled them into a group hug, Amethyst crushed in the middle.

"Ugh." Amethyst squirmed around, secretly pleased. She stopped struggling after a moment, and basked in the warm attention.

A manga drew her attention, from the corner of her eye. It was Food Wars. On the cover was a juicy meal being enjoyed by people in the throes of ecstasy. Amethyst stared, remembering how good that oil tasted…

Breaking off the embrace, Amethyst thundered up the steps, picked up the offending manga, and hid them in one of Steven's boxes.

The rest of them stared at her. Amethyst chuckled. "Can't have a risk of me re-offending, right?"


End file.
